Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to the field of computerized data processing and monitoring techniques. More particularly, and without limitation, the disclosure relates to computer-implemented methods and systems for generating data associated with web pages and web content, and for analyzing the generated data to ensure compliance with online privacy regulations.
Background
Online advertising has become a billion dollar industry in today's digital content-driven economy. The portability of digital content using mobile computing devices, such as smart phones and media players, has expanded the reach of online advertisers beyond traditional personal computer users. Advertisers and publishers of online content, however, desire accurate estimates of the performance of advertisements, such as the performance of a particular advertisement associated with a specific location on a website, in order to ensure effective ad placement.
Many advertisers and publishers of online content may therefore implement ad tracking systems or methods to monitor consumer behavior and generate accurate demographic profiles of consumers that view specific web sites and respond to certain advertisements. For example, advertisers and publishers of online content may utilize tracking or browser cookies that collect information on a consumer's browsing habits, which enable the targeting of specific advertisements and online content to the consumer based on his or her browsing habits.
With the growing volume of daily Internet traffic, many consumers now view of the presence of such tracking and monitoring techniques as a threat to their privacy and security. Due to this reaction, governmental entities and self-regulatory bodies now require advertisers and publishers of online content to protect consumer privacy by complying with various restrictions on their tracking and monitoring activities. For example, advertisers and publishers of online content may be required to provide consumers with an opportunity to “opt-out” of behavioral monitoring and tracking activity, to limit data collection on sites geared to children, and to limit sharing of collected data with third-parties. However, the increasing of content available across the Internet, and the increasing number of web pages, makes it increasingly difficult for advertisers and publishers of online content to cost-effectively monitor their compliance with these privacy and security policies.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved systems and methods for ensuring the compliance of an advertiser or content provider with governmental and self-regulatory privacy and security policies. There is also a need for improved systems and methods for monitoring the performance of opt-out systems required under these privacy regulations. Such systems and methods may be implemented in computer-based environments, such as the Internet and network environments that provide online content and/or services to users.